This is my response to a Docudharma / DailyKos blog post, called SHHHHHHHHHH!!!! - wherein we are (sarcastically) urged to "yell louder".
While sympathetic with the sentiment, I took exception to consideration of such a notion as either a optimal long term, or even optimal short term, strategy.
I present a sketch of an approach that I consider to be a much smarter and, frankly, less frustrating and emotionally taxing
Factory food sickens humans, livestock and the environment
What we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the last 10,000. So asserts Robert Kenner's new film, FOOD, Inc., which opens nationwide June 19th. The vast bulk of food production is now controlled by just a few mega-corporations with one value: profit. Relying on genetic engineering, pesticides and antibiotics, factory food is cheap, requiring little land. But the external costs to our health, the environment and the natural food industry are enormous.
Director: Robert Kenner
Producers: Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
Co-Producer: Eric Schlosser
Released by Magnolia Pictures, with Participant Media and River Road Entertainment
93 minutes
FOOD, Inc. is the single most important film of the decade. Transcending hype and industry muzzling, the film exposes some of the cruel and unnatural aspects of industrial farms and food processing. It links epidemic rates of US obesity and diabetes with our intake of genetically engineered food.
NPR called it this summer's "suspense thriller."
The film condemns how workers and animals are abused. Illegal immigrants, who cannot complain about working conditions, comprise most of the workers at industrial food plants. They are vulnerable to raids and deportation. No corporate executives are arrested.
Well researched and well scored, the film debunks the pastoral fantasy spin. Industrial food is not grown, raised or processed on a farm. The animals see no sunshine, are kept immobile in cages, and are genetically or chemically modified. Those that are somewhat mobile are bioengineered to plump their bodies faster than their bones and muscles can support. They flop helplessly to the floor when trying to move.
Read the full review, with images, at http://snipurl.com/k4s6d
The Democrats are a corrupt organization, similar in most respects to the Republicans, financed by bribes and kick-backs from businesses, the rich, and foreign countries. They hide their wrongdoing by a careful propaganda war against their own supporters which would confuse the most informed voter. It is 1984, it is new-speak, it is sophisticated propaganda. The reason they pay so much money to PR/consultant firms is because propaganda works. It does what it's supposed to do: it fools the people.
For example, the Democrats rode into office on a two-year horrendously expensive campaign of "Change," demanding that we all tithe to them, our future Kings and Queens who promised to free us from the despotic Bush/Cheney regime. Yet once the Democrats took control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, they have done nothing but reaffirm and ratify everything that the Bush/Cheney regime did for the past 8 years.
Obama ran as an anti-war candidate, but since he got into office he has affirmed the wars, escalated the one in Afghanistan, started a new one against Pakistan, appointed Hillary Clinton ("I will annihilate Iran") as Secretary of State and allows her to intensify the rhetoric and presumably the secret interventions into Iran, and recently had one of his spokespersons tell the public that the U.S. military will occupy Iraq for at least another ten years. What change?
Obama's Department of Justice has supported the Bush/Cheney regime in all its dictatorial and illegal war-crimes policies including the "right" to kidnap, torture, and murder without any consequences (Obama just said they won't torture in Cuba -- but did not stop the practice in the CIA black-hole secret prisons around the world).
They have intervened in every lawsuit by an injured victim trying to receive compensation for being kidnapped and tortured, and they intervene on the side of Bush/Cheney to stop the lawsuit, stop the truth from being revealed. They refuse to let the public see the evidence of torture and war crimes, refuse to release prisoners wrongly and illegally held, refuse to release prisoners against whom there is no legitimate evidence of a crime.
The Obama DOJ refuses to enforce the law against the rich and powerful, which is the most important indicia of a dictatorship: the rich and powerful can get away with anything, even murder. The police and military state can kill working people (in this country and others) without consequence. The prison industry flourishes from the millions of small-time criminals locked up for decades for minor property crimes while the rich and powerful kill by the thousands, and nobody does a thing to hold them accountable.
Obama and the Democrats ran as the party that would stop the looting and plundering of America by Wall Street and the CEOs. But the fact is they have been the primary party (even under Bush) in supporting the hundreds of billions in bail-out money given to Wall Street. They support this theft of taxpayer money because Wall Street gives the Democratic politicians enormous bribes and kick-backs.
They refuse to conduct hearings, investigations, prosecutions of the criminals on Wall Street, which includes pretty much every person who worked there for the past ten years, despite the fact that these criminals have defrauded the public, and plundered and looted our country, perhaps destroying our economy and setting the stage for most of us to live the rest of our lives in dire poverty. They've put hundreds of millions of dollars into their own pockets of stolen money, yet Obama's Justice Department refuses to seize the assets or prosecute these people for international financial crimes against the world. They've stolen people's jobs, homes, and retirement funds, and the Democrats do nothing to try to take that money back and help the people of this country. And all along, Wall Street keeps paying the big bribes to the Democrats.
Obama and the Democrats claimed they would re-take control of the economy to help the citizens, yet since they've been in office they have done nothing to create jobs except a few part-time, temporary census workers hired by Obama.
Obama and the Democrats claimed they would get tough on the financial sector, and proudly proclaim their credit card "reform" bill which did not one thing to help the people of this country. They refused to cap interest rates, which is the only part of the credit card transaction that really matters.
The Democrats have been playing the Supreme court game for weeks, and apparently will for months: those mean old Republicans won't let us confirm Sotomayor. The problem with this story is that they only need 51 votes to confirm, so they should have immediate hearings then vote, and stop the fund-raising nonsense of turning the impotent Republicans into the bogeyman.
The Democrats blame the lobbyists, they blame the cost of campaigns, they blame the chamber of commerce, the blame the "powerful" healthcare and financial industry, say they won't let the Democrats do what they want. "Powerful" interests are working against them. Nonsense. Write the bill, vote on the bill, pass the bill. I wish my job was that easy. But instead of doing their job, the Democrats spend most of their time soliciting and accepting bribes. None of the lobbyists would be employed if the politicians would simply refuse to take bribes.
If the Democrats want to help the people, they should pass the strictest bribery law, strictest campaign finance laws imaginable. Stop the corruption. Stop taking bribes, stop selling their votes.
The efforts to pass the Employee Free Choice Act ("EFCA") have supposedly bogged down in Congress, the Democrats claiming they "can't" get it passed because the Chamber of Commerce and corporate lobbyists are battling against it. I don't blame the Chamber of Commerce or the lobbyists. They do what they say they will do: represent businesses. Who represents the people? Nobody.
Generally a left or progressive movement is developed at least in part through a political party that works on the local level to help organize people around the important issues, such as jobs, job security, benefits, environment, education, healthcare, and works on the national level to support those policies. But the Democrats don't do that. All the Democrats do is ask for money. And the Obama people ask for blind loyalty, labor, and money. I'm tapped out.
I just got an e-mail last week asking me to go out and campaign and lobby in support of Obama's health care reform policy. What policy? I replied: what policy is it that I'm supporting? What exactly is it that Obama is promising to do for me? What change? But they don't bother to tell me that, just as Obama has not bothered to tell us what exactly is it that he supports. It's beginning to appear that what he supports is just another corporate give-away. He will order all Americans to buy health insurance. Then "HOPE" that the costs come down. That kind of HOPE I don't need. No thanks.
I suppose Obama's next anti-foreclosure policy will consists of ordering all Americans to cure their defaults and begin paying their mortgages on a timely basis. He can deal with the issue of unemployment by ordering all Americans to go out and get a full-time job. End hunger in America by ordering all the citizens to begin buying food every day and eating it. How stupid do the Democrats think we are?
We hear "the left" blamed for the failures to stop Bush and the Republicans. But the primary blame falls on the Democratic Party which, under the guidance of Bill Clinton and Terry McCauliffe, became the Party of Corruption, the corporate party, the party of vote-selling and bribes and kick-backs. I don't know if it can be reformed. I don't think so -- I think it's too far gone.
Everyone is screaming that the Republican party is on its last legs. Maybe we should push the Democratic Party over the cliff at the same time, let new parties rise up and begin to provide leadership in this country. Such as, for example, if this healthcare "reform" goes down as expected, with nothing for the people, maybe millions of us can change our registration to Independent all at the same time. Maybe that would get somebody's attention.
The Democratic Party serves to prevent a progressive movement from taking shape by promising to do things to help the people, failing to do anything, then lying and deceiving the public by claiming that some evil Republican force prevents them from doing their job.
This is the perfect storm for the Democratic Party: they've got all the power, the Republicans are busted, and the Democrats can do what they want. But all we see are millions of dollars being paid to the Democrats by the corporations and a continuation of the Bush/Cheney policies.
I'm about ready to become an Independent, remove that little (d) from after my name. I'll send a Good-bye Card: Dear Nancy, Harry, Barack, Hillary and Rahm: This is good-bye forever. I'm just not that into you.
We Need Single-Payer, Medicare For All. And We Need To Strictly Regulate Or Shut Down Private Health Insurance Companies.
We hear the Democrats in Congress coming out loudly proclaiming that they would never do anything to take business away from their bffs, the Health Insurance Industry and the lobbyists for same who pay so much money in bribes to the politicians in Congress. "Why, if I didn't keep getting bribes from the health insurance industry, I wouldn't be able to buy myself castles, hideaways, gold bars and other useless crap," many Senators have been quoted as saying.
But the truth is that the Health Insurance Industry kills more Americans than the mafia or their gang-banger successors ever dreamed of killing. Ted Bundy looks up from the deepest recesses of hell and asks: "I don't get it -- they killed me, but these insurance guys not only get away with it, they also get paid big bonuses." The health insurance industry insiders should be sitting on death row with their names printed on little tiny needles for the torture and suffering they have caused to Americans, having in-house competitions and earning huge bonuses and free holidays for all the sick, weak, sufffering cancer patients they deny coverage and send to a coffin instead of a hospital bed.
Yet the Democrats receive so much money in bribes from this criminal enterprise known as the Health Insurance Industry, that they willingly turn the lives and health of American working people over to these institutions which see health care as a racket, and force people to pay exoribitant fees to see a doctor for 3 minutes and be told they should take drugs, which are not covered, then come back in 6 months if they're still alive and have a follow-up appointment.
Am I exaggerating?
Ask Patsy Bates, a 52 year old woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer. Thank God she had private health insurance through Health Net, Inc. After receiving this terrible diagnosis of breast cancer, Paty Bates began going to the doctors appointments to receive the chemotherapy that had been recommended, that horrible treatment known as chemotherapy which Patsy Bates willingly did because it could save her life.
When the medical costs for treatment of Patsy Bates' breast cancer reached $130,000, Health Net abruptly cancelled her coverage. Isn't that a good trick? You wait until somebody gets sick , then you either cancel the insurance altogether or raise the premiums by so much that people cannot afford it. Cool, huh? That's what they did to Patsy Bates, which meant she could not get the chemotherapy treatment that her doctors had recommended.
What is the excuse that Health Neat used to cancel the policy after Patsy got breast cancer, and before she had completed her treatment? Her weight -- they said if they'd know her actual weight, they wouldn't have issued a policy. What difference does that make? She wasn't a contestant in The Biggest Loser -- she was a cancer patient who needed chemotherpy to save her life. The insurance company also claimed that they should be allowed to cancel the policy because they learned that Patsy had some kind of pre-existing heart "condition?" One of those dime-a-dozen valve things? In any event, what difference does it make? She got breast cancer, not a heart attack.
The case was submitted to private arbitration, and the arbitrator found in favor of Patsy Bates and against the Health Insurance company, finding its practices to be "egregious." I'll say. Health Net, Inc. operates Blue Cross of California, the state's largest for-profit insurer. There was evidence that the for-profit insurance companies have a standard practice of cancelling the insurance policies of any patient who accumulates a bill over a certain amount of money. In other words, as soon as an insured gets sick, the company cancels the policy.
I guess, if we want to be fair, the health insurance industry figures they can't afford to both pay for medical care for sick people and pay enormous bribes to the Democrats in Congress. One or the other, right?
All over this country there are people who have private health insurance, either that they buy for themselves because they can afford it, or their employer provides. And they figure they don't need any health care "reform" so they're against it. But what they don't understand is that a health insurance policy is illusory. People pay a premium every month, and the health insurance company will provide coverage for the covered medical costs incurred during that month.
What people don't understand is that if they get cancer in month 1, the insurance company can go ahead and cancel the insurance in month 2 which means they'll pay for the doctor's visit in month 1 when you get the bad news, but after that they're on their own. Or, in the alternative, in month 2 they announce that the premiums are now $1500/month. Most people can't afford that, which means the insurance is cancelled. The contract is "illusory" because the consumer pays good money, but what they get in return is a fairy-tale that they are protected, when the fact is they are doing a deal with the devil.
And here's the part where you thought I was just kidding. One of the things that came out during the arbitration of the Patsy Bates dispute is that Healthnet has an employee rewards-and-bonuses system that rewards employees for each policy that they cancel on a sick person. The reward and bonus is calculated based upon the amount of money that the insurance company calculates they would have had to pay to provide coverage for the insured. I wonder if they get a gold watch at the end of the year for each policy cancelled in which the insured quickly died. No muss, no fuss, just quietly send them to their coffins.
These blood-sucking parasites have been living off of a system of fraud, deceit, and highway robbery for too long. We need to eliminate health insurance from our health care industry.
A good start is to make Medicare available to any American, regardless of age. People who have an income can buy in, just like paying an insurance premium except they will hopefully get charged an affordable amount, and the coverage will not be cancelled on them when they get sick and need it. This is what's called a Single-Payer plan.
The Democrats in Congress take money from the health insurance industry. The industry does not want any single-payer plan made available because they know that if Americans were given the choice, they would quickly move to join a public plan where their premiums would be affordable and coverage would not be denied once they get sick. Demand single-payer. It is almost a make-or-break issue on the Obama administration.
If President Obama and Congress abandon the people of this country on this issue, and force through some meaningless "modifications" to the existing healthcare system, for-profit and anti-health, then the Democrats are useless.
The Senate just passed an empty law they call a "reform" of the credit card industry. The Democrats will undoubtedly proclaim across the land, I'm guessing by tomorrow in e-mail solicitations, that they are working hard to help the people of this country, protect them from the predators on Wall Street. But the Democrats will be lying when they make those claims, as will President Obama who undoubtedly will use this in his re-election campaign.
The media will also lie about it, trying to fool the public into believing this law does something to help the people. But the only thing it really does is to further defraud the public.
There are a few nonsensical provisions that will have no effect whatsoever. They can't use a dragnet clause (to say a default on anything else, like a mortgage, is a default on their credit card so they can raise the interest). Big deal. Somebody's house is in foreclosure, their credit card is not the biggest thing on their mind. They give people a little bit longer before the late fees hit, but they leave the late fees in there -- which, combined with other ridiculous punitive fees raised $20 Billion for these Loansharks last year alone.
But here's the worst part of all. A new provision says that anyone under 21 must either prove they are able to pay the credit card or have their parents be co-signers. The Democrats claim that this is to "protect" young people from getting credit cards if they're unable to pay them. But the truth is that this is just a sneaky, deceptive way to fool adults to take on responsibility for their children's obligations -- 18 through 21 -- when right now, there is no such obligation. An 18 year old defaults on a credit card, tough luck Citibank, try to collect. Under the new law, Citibank will go grab Mom and Dad's paycheck. Even for a 20-year-old who lives on their own, and has a full-time job. Citibank will now go take the money out of Mom and Dad's checking account. Thanks to the Democrats, who undoubtedly will claim this is another big benefit for working Americans.
Last week, someone introduced an amendment to cap interest on credit cards at 15%. It was shot down. The Democrats have the majority in the Senate, but they also take the most bribes from the credit card industry. So they said no way. The federal government loans money to the credit card industry at 1/2 % interest per year. The credit card industry turns around and loans that money to American citizens, but charge 25% interest per year, and they rake in about a 24% profit per year. Talk about obscene loansharking practices.
This week, somebody introduced an amendment to "limit" interest to 36%, and that was shot down too. No, the Democrats cried, we must let the credit card companies charge 50% interest if they want, because they pay us so much money in bribes.
What we should do is just pick a date, then stop paying and stop using our credit cards. Tell Congress to get up off their fat, corrupt asses and pass a real reform of credit cards to limit interest to 10%, eliminate late and other fees, and make the new interest rate retroactive to January 1 of this year.
What do you call a government that lies to the citizens, deceives them, pretends to be a democracy but actually sells their votes to the richest corporations in the world, lets businesses take the jobs to other countries, watch their own people be thrown out of work and forced to borrow money just to survive, then lets the loansharks charge 25% or more for a simple loan? A corrupt, deceitful, fraudulent, useless, traitorous dictatorship.
The Senate today voted down a proposal that would cap credit card interest at 15%. The Senators who voted against it (only 33 supported it) argued that it was such a "controversial" provision, they were afraid that they would lose support for their consumer rights credit card law that they have drafted, which President Obama has claimed will be some great victory for consumers.
Except the pending law is a bunch of meaningless crap. The real reason they won't cap interest rates is because the credit card companies pay so much money in bribes to the politicians. So they sell their votes. And Obama sells the presidency and the white house. And the public gets screwed once again.
This much ballyhooed consumer-rights law includes such ridiculous "protections" as requiring the credit card company to give debtors notice before they raise the interest rates (to however high they want). What good does that do? The debtor can't pay off the card -- they don't have the money. The debtor can't move to some other card -- they all do the same, they all have the low-interest come-on that is yanked away in 3 months and replaced with the usurious interest.
Loan sharks. Our entire federal government is on the payroll of loan sharks. Criminals. The people who put the Mafia out of business. And they own Congress, and they own the President.
This is what we should do. Stop paying our credit cards. Demand a cap of 10% interest, and don't pay one penny to the credit card companies until Congress gets up off their lazy corrupt asses and passes a law making it illegal for anyone, credit card companies included, to charge anyone more than 10% interest on any loan, charge, or other financial transaction bearing interest.
Want a big laugh? The Republicans keep saying the Democrats are "socialists." The Democrats are closer to being made-men in the mob than to being socialists. Socialists actually do something for the people once in awhile, instead of just shoveling all the money into the coffers of the corporations.
Those Corrupt Money-Loving Back-Stabbing Traitorous Democratic Politicians Are Cheating On Us Again. Demand Single-Payer Healthcare.
(NOTE: "Single-Payer" Healthcare means that one person pays the bills. Generally, that means the government pays the bills. Doctors receive information from the government about how much they pay for office visits, procedures, etc., where to send the bills, and the doctors get paid by the government. No insurance companies involved, and no premiums paid to the insurance companies. They contribute nothing, so they are rightfully eliminated from the entire system).
President Obama and the Democrats, in general, have been promising Americans for decades that if only they (the Democrats) had any power at all in the national government, they would make sure that we all have a healthcare system that provides healthcare to all Americans.
Well hallelujah hallelujah. The Democrats are in control. Of the White House. Of the Senate. Of the House of Representatives. And better still, there's no real opposition left. So let's do it, Democrats, let's move forward on one of the most disgraceful failings of our country, the refusal to provide our own people with medical care when they are sick.
I suppose only a moron would be surprised to learn that now they have gained power, by making these fraudulent promises to the citizens, the Democrats have no intention whatsoever to change the healthcare system. It turns out, they were just throwing out the word "change" as a paddle to get the Medical Industry to pay them even more bribes. "Here," the lobbyists said, "Here are millions more of our money. Don't change a thing."
Just like the credit card industry did to stop the Democrats from putting a cap on interest rates and getting rid of the late fees. So Congress abandoned any protection of the consumers and passed some stupid, meaningless, toothless "borrower's rights" laws that do nothing to stop the credit card companies from raping the public, and do nothing to help the citizens. With help like that, maybe we should have just elected the Republicans. What change? This isn't change.
Doctors make a bundle. In addition to their main practices, many of them have sidelines like weight-loss clinics, sports training facilities, they buy MRIs then get their friends to send all their patients to them for testing, they get hospital contracts and staff them with their friends, taking a piece out of everything paid. They even become consultants to soap operas. They're cleaning up, making a fortune. And one way they can continue to do that is to grossly overcharge for their services, keep an artificially-created shortage of doctors so they don't have much competition, and bribe Congress so that nobody passes laws to change this rotten system.
Actually, every time a hospital says they're going to cut back, they always cut back on the nurses who earn a paltry wage and do most of the work. There should be little difference between what a nurse earns and what a doctor earns, but the fact is that nursing has always been a female-dominated profession, and that's why they are paid so little. For example, if nurses make $50,000/year, and doctors make $350,000 (which is minimal where I live), then why not pay the nurses $75,000, pay the doctors $150,000, and have money left over to refund to the patients. They're both making a good living, and the provision of care becomes more affordable.
As far as hospitals go, they have become "profit centers." Built by community funding then eventually taken over by for-profit criminals, this $5.00 for an aspirin is straight-up fraud and theft. Let's take the hospitals back, turn them into non-profit centers owned by the community, and get rid of this smelly mold-like growth that goes by the name "hospital administrators."
Let's talk about the drug pushers -- the legal ones. Guess who funds most of the medical research? Taxpayers do, through the universities. When a university discovers something of value, it is licensed to a drug company, then sold to the public with a 1000% mark-up, or more. Mostly these corporate drug pushers invest in drugs for healthy people who don't need drugs. You want to sell drugs to healthy people so they will stay alive and keep buying the drugs for a long time, providing an income stream. Let's say, for example, that the corporate drug pusher can convince the public that anyone who feels uncomfortable in a roomful of strangers is actually suffering from a medical disease known as Social Anxiety Disorder. But before you panic, here's the good news: THERE IS A CURE!!! Call your doctor (they tell you, in the TV commercial) and get a prescription.
Now why would doctors push this crap on people? Because the doctors get bribes and kick-backs. There is an entire industry known as "Pharmaceutical Sales." Almost to a person they are young and exceptionally good-looking people. They make their living by "visiting" with doctors, flirting, smiling, be pretty or handsome, dining, wooing cooing and noodling, all to get the sale. And they're well-paid to do it. The doctors like having these good-looking young people hanging around. And what the heck, they get lots of free samples so their patients are happy. Every-body-makes-money. Well, except for the patients.
These drug pushers actually calculate the income stream per target -- or patient. Let's say you get someone to buy Drug A, at $30/month, you determine the person's life expectancy, add in a factor for inflation and increase in price of the drugs, calculate it out till the date of death, discount to present value, and you can put a dollar number on exactly how much that patient will pay to the drug company for Drug A during their lifetime. Pretty cool, huh? How can you guarantee the patient will take the drug for life? Have warnings against going off it, for one thing. And maybe throw in a little something extra that will make it uncomfortable for people to go off. They're hooked, baby, and they're going to be paying money to the corporate drug pusher until the patient dies.
Most of the drugs the drug pushers make and sell have nothing to do with health or healthcare, and have everything to do with the question of what is most profitable. My God, Alzheimers is a terrible thing, no question. But most people who get it are relatively well-off white Americans, fairly old. Only about 1.6% of the population of this country suffers from Alzheimers. Even once people reach 90, there is only about a 7% chance they will get Alzheimers in any given year. It isn't quite the epidemic level that one might believe from the news. But why all the advertising, fund raising push for this particular problem? Because there's money in it, that's why.
Relatively well-off people who see mom beginning to slip will spend a lot of money to fund medical research to help mom, because they're terrified they'll get it themselves. But if we really want to help the people in this country, we would be better off starting school programs to provide kids with 3 meals/day of healthy food so they don't end up so fat. Kids are fat because their parents feed them junk, because the food industry has been taken over by people who want to maximize profit, which they do by selling junk to kids. Want to improve our health? Start there.
Viagra. Anti-balding pills. What a pathetic waste that we have millions of children in the world who die from lack of clean drinking water, but the medical industry in the U.S. devotes much of its resources to finding drugs to help men have thick hair and 3-hour erections. And of course the new area of focus for the drug pushers is to try to find a drug for women over 50 that will make them horny all the time. To go along with the old man with the thick head of hair and the 3-hour erection.
The Medical Industry in our country is corrupt. They care about nothing except making money, and they do not care how many Americans die from the gross failure of the entire system. They're in it for the money, they'll get theirs, it's not their problem.
But it is our problem. And now that the Democrats are in complete control, what can we expect by way of relief?
It doesn't look good. Go to OpenSecrets.org (link below) and look under the Healthcare Industry for donations. Go back to about 1990, the Medical Industry paid $20 million in bribes and kick-backs to the politicians. That started to jump up under the pro-business Republican president Clinton, up to $68 million in bribes paid by the Medical Industry to the politicians by 1996. Then we have a huge jump up to $100 million paid by the Medical Industry in bribes and kick-backs in 2000 and 2002.
Somewhere in there, the Republicans passed a law saying the Medicare system would pay for drugs, and forbidding the government agencies from trying to get a discounted price on anything. This was a two-fold level of corruption by the Republicans. First, it was an enormous giveaway to the corporate drug pushers who, in turn, paid enormous kick-backs and bribes to the Republicans. Second, the Republicans want to bankrupt Medicare so they can end the entire program. A two-fer.
By 2004, after Bush had shown his willingness to allow the Medical Industry and all the other criminals to completely loot our country, the Medical Industry paid out $124 million in bribes and kick-backs to the politicians.
In 2008, realizing that the horse was change in mid-stream from Republican to Democrat, the Medical Industry paid out almost $165 million in bribes to the politicians (slightly over half of that paid to the Democrats).
One hundred sixty-five million dollars in bribes paid in 2008 alone. Over half of that paid to the Democrats. What do you think are the chances that the Democrats will bite the hand that feeds them? None, unless we make them.
http://www.opensecrets.org/ind...
What should we demand? That all citizens have the right to participate in a single-payer health system. Anybody who wants to continue to buy private insurance should be free to do so. People who would prefer buying into a single payer system run by the government, like Medicare, should be free to do so. Let the people have a choice. The Democrats, who formerly promised that they would make single-payer one of the options available, are now refusing to even discuss it. That's because they took bribes from the Medical Industry, and one of the conditions of the bribes was that the Democrats tell the citizens that there will be no single-payer option. Period.
How would single payer work? Just like Medicare does. Everybody who chooses to be a part of the single payer system would sign up, get a card, then go to the doctor when they need to. The government pays the bills. That's it.
Now, should people who work contribute something to the cost? That seems fair. As long as they earn enough money. People who are poor shouldn't have to pay. Since the businesses have stopped paying healthcare for employees, their taxes should be raised to capture some of that savings. But most working people would gladly pay to the government some monthly amount for healthcare.
For self-employed or unemployed people, who have to buy their own insurance, health insurance is illusory: it "exists" so long as you're healthy, you pay money to them and they pay nothing for you, but if you get sick they will jack up your premiums to the point that you can no longer afford insurance, and they will walk away with all your money in their pocket, and leave you to die. I know a guy who had a heart attack at 42, and his health insurance premiums went up to over $1,000/month. He couldn't afford it. I just heard about some guy, 59, just diagnosed with adult onset diabetes, his premiums went from $300/month to $1300/month, so he no longer has insurance because he couldn't afford it.
These insurance companies take premiums for 40 years, but as soon as the person gets sick they raise the premiums to force the sick person to drop the insurance. These insurance companies all are staffed by psychotic mass-killers, and they should be in prison.
These insurance companies contribute nothing to healthcare. They take our money but when there is a medical problem, they do everything in their power to deny paying for the care. They will delay processing a claim for treatment in the hopes that the patient will die, so they won't have to pay. These people and this industry have no business being involved in healthcare.
As far as the whining doctors, with their AMA lobby bribing Congress, all they're in it for is the money. I'd say that if a doctor can treat patients under a single-payer system and earn $150,000/year, they should be grateful because they're still earning a lot more money than most Americans do. And because they always whine about malpractice insurance, and the high cost of a medical education, I'm sure we could work something out to offset those costs, over time, for doctors who participate in the system. For doctors who refuse, fine, let them go treat people who have private health insurance. Rich people.
Demand a single payer option be made available to the American public. The health insurance industry is fighting hard against this because polls show that when people are told what this option would mean, a huge percentage of Americans would choose it rather than continue to be raped by the criminals running the health insurance industry. I would take that single-payer option in 2 seconds if it was available in order to get away from the scumbucket health insurance industry. I've been self-insured for over 15 years, in good health, but all they ever do is suck money out of me and I get nothing in return.
Here's a link to, and some excerpts from, an article by Ralph Nader discussing the single-payer healthcare issue, and the plan of the Democrats to abandon it in exchange for all the bribes paid to them by the Medical Industry:
"Remember the Baucus Eight! - The Single-Payer Taboo"
By RALPH NADER
"Among the giant taboos afflicting Congress these days is the proposal to create a single payer health insurance system (often called full Medicare for everyone). ... [S]ingle payer is only supported by a majority of the American people, physicians and nurses. They like the idea of public funding and private delivery. They like the free choice of doctors and hospitals that many are now denied by the HMOs. "
"There are also great administrative efficiencies when single payer displaces the health insurance industry and its claims-denying, benefit-restricting, bureaucratically-heavy profiteering. According to leading researchers in this area, Dr. David Himmelstein and Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, single payer will save $350 billion annually."
"Yet, on Capitol Hill and at the White House there are no meetings, briefings, hearings, and consultations about kinds of health care reforms that reform the basic price inflation, indifference to prevention, and discrimination by health insurers."
"There is no place at the table for single payer advocates in the view of the Congressional leaders who set the agenda and muzzle dissenters."
"Last month at a breakfast meeting with reporters, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) responded to a question about health care with these revealing and exasperating words: "'Over and over again, we hear single payer, single payer, single payer. Well, it's not going to be a single payer.'"
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Ralph Nader goes on to discuss the hearings just begun in the Senate to discuss health care changes, but not one single person invited to speak will support single payer healthcare. The Democrats have barred any witness who supports single payer healthcare. They refuse to even let the public hear about this option. Demonstrators have been evicted from the hearings for standing up and speaking out for single payer healthcare.
So, what can you do? Call, e-mail, write your representative and senator and your local paper, and speak out in support of single payer healthcare.
Point out the bribes paid to the politicians in Washington D.C. by the Medical Industry (almost $400 Million Dollars paid by the Medical Industry to the politicians in Washington D.C. from 2004 through 2008, most of it as bribes and kick-backs to make sure Congress does not pass any law to help the citizens of this country get a modern, rational, affordable healthcare system).
Point out that the only reason single-payer is being rejected is because of these enormous bribes and kick-backs that have been paid by the Medical Industry to our politicians. Point out that a corrupt government will not stand, will not survive in times like these when the citizens need help, but all we see is the government continuing to give massive hand-outs to the corporations and the rich, and back-of-the-hand to the people. Point out that it may be the right to time to start a new political party, maybe call it the "Honest" party, if the Democrats keep giving all the money to the rich people and refuse to do anything to help everyone else. P.S.: we need dental care included in the bill.
Ralph Nader's full article can be seen at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/na...
And here's a link to a website about the bill in Congress proposing a single payer healthcare system. http://www.healthcare-now.org/...
I could not even begin to address the criminality that is the essence of the credit card industry.
In order to understand credit cards, we need to recognize that most banks will loan people money for a modest interest rate. If the borrower has some assets -- a house, for example -- as collateral.
But for working people with few assets, the only loan they can get is from the credit card companies or the loan sharks -- same difference -- at outrageous interest rates. The interest charged does not reflect the "risk" of the loan, the number of defaults, the difficulty in collection, or any of the other stories they always tell us. They charge it because they can get away with it, just like the mob does.
Every once in awhile, some leading Democrat has a press conference and insists they're going to "get tough" on credit card companies. But it's all just a show -- a circus to divert the public from the truth, which is that most of the Senators and Representatives take bribes from the credit card companies. Take bribes to look the other way when the credit card companies steal everything from the working people of this country.
Most countries in the world have laws about usury. We do too. They prohibit people from charging excessive interest on a loan. For most of us, for example, if we loan money to somebody, we can only charge a certain amount of interest -- around 10% in most states.
So why don't the credit card companies have to obey the laws about usury? Because they paid bribes to the politicians in Congress to get a special law saying that they don't have to obey those laws. It's just straight-up corruption.
Credit card companies are thieves, the same as the street hoodlums who hide in alleys and knock people over the head on their way home from work, steal their wallets. The credit card industry is responsible for stealing trillions of dollars from working people in the U.S. every year.
We need serious new regulations of this industry. The absurd "disclosure" additions to the law, put into place by Wall Street's favorite Senator Chuck Schumer, does absolutely nothing to help the people. So what if the Loan Sharks have to "announce" what they plan to do right before they break your legs? Disclosure does not cure or solve theft and fraud. Chris Dodd recently announced his own "get tough" new rules, which are also garbage. From now on, when they send you a statement, they have to put it in 9 point instead of 8 point type. Just absurd "reforms" which do nothing to help the people of this country.
When working people's wages are being crushed by corporations sending jobs outside the country, when the cost of everything is artificially raised by corporations manipulating the markets (i.e. the oil companies), most people need to borrow money to pay for emergencies. When the only loans available come from the Loansharks, then having a law that makes them "disclose" that they will charge obscene amounts does nothing to help working people. Thanks for nothing Chuck Schumer and Chris Dodd. And Congress, which just this week asked President Obama to "talk" to their biggest contributors, ask them to please be nicer. Yeah, that'll do it.
Here's some shocking numbers on the Loan Shark industry in the U.S.:
Let's talk about a few of the biggest problems. This is what Congress needs to change. Now.
1. Usury. Credit cards should have a maximum interest of 10%.
2. "Late" Fees. Late fees should be illegal. If someone is late, the interest keeps running so the credit card company loses nothing.
3. Over-limit charges. Straight theft. They lose nothing if somebody charges over the limit.
4. Cash advance charges. Absurd. Enormous charges on top of the obscene interest rates for, essentially, somebody borrowing a couple of hundred dollars.
5. Dragnet clauses. If you default on your car loan from another lender, then the credit card company will "drag" that default into the credit card account, and raise your interest to 25%. Ridiculous. The two things have nothing to do with each other.
6. Mailing location for billing statements. They tell people the due-date is, for example, the 28th of the month (more below). Somebody in California puts the check in the mail on the 25th or 26th, but their payment center is in God-knows-where Maine, rural, with poor mail service, to maximize late fees.
7. Due-dates chosen to maximize late payments. Due-dates are generally the 28th of the month, or the 13th, around there. They know people get paid on the 15th and 30th, will write the check out the next day, and are more likely to be late. All due-dates should be on the 20th of the month.
8. Interest independent of what the loansharks pay us to borrow our money. Credit card companies borrow my money, taxpayer's money, from the federal government, and pay less than 1% interest per year. Then they turn around and charge 25% per year on credit cards. Their total "costs" consist of paying some 12 year old girl in a third world country about $1.00/day to sit in front of a computer and process payments, issue new bills. They're making a killing off of us. And Congress knows it, and they let them because they get kick-backs. Interest for credit cards should be capped at 10% but also tied to the federal discount rate -- say 5% more than the lowest federal discount rate for the preceding 6 months -- which means today's rate should be 6% on credit cards.
(This could help tip one of the biggest off-year elections next November. Don't believe me? Read it and see for yourself. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
If you don't know, there are 2 high profile races in November. The NJ-Governor is one of them, and Jon Corzine is behind in the polls by close to 10 points to Chris Christie. Christie is a Bushie fundraising ethically challenged former US Attorney in NJ, and a story is starting to bubble up now about something that could sink his candidacy. This is also over at Blue Jersey, where there is a whole lot more about Christie's background and cracks in his "ethical armor".
Thanks in advance for reading, and however you can help spread the word, it would be much appreciated. Please help this go viral. Not only will a Corzine victory deal a crushing blow to republicans in the Northeast, but a Christie win will be something that every single republican will point to as "evidence of a republican resurgence"
Sunday's news about Bill Richardson has me moderately worried. I have no idea if he did anything wrong, but either way I see a pattern of incompetence developing that will be really problematic if it continues. Democrats have been politically incompetent for as long as I've been alive (although Obama was thought to have ended this streak with his successful campaign). But while the old pattern is Democrats caving to Republicans, now I'm also seeing examples of Democrats being corrupt and getting outmaneuvered by other Democrats. The former is annoying, but we've got lots of practice with online organizing to resist it.
But the latter is just pure political malpractice. Here's three quick examples from the last three weeks. 1: Being close to appointing Caroline Kennedy to a Senate seat against the will of the people, purely because of her family connections. 2: Letting this Blagojevich situation fester. (Nate Silver put it best: "The Senate Democrats may have let this situation get away from them when they got greedy and pulled back from the promise of a special election [to replace Blagojevich].") 3: And now inviting more corruption questions because of this Richardson investigation. Each of these messes can be traced to Democratic overreach - cutting corners on ethics to eke out marginal political advantage (to wit: easier fundrasing if a Kennedy runs in the 2010 New York senate race, preventing a Republican from possibly winning the Illinois senate seat if there were a special election, and winning diversity points by appointing a Hispanic-American to the Cabinet).
Democrats need to stop this now. There's a lot of change they need to deliver in a very short amount of time, and making these sorts of mistakes is going to hamstring them before they can even start legislating. The responsibility to stop this behavior lies with Obama, but so far he hasn't done a great job of curbing these excesses. And, as far as I can tell, the Rezko thing is actually an example of Obama making the sort of overreach I was just talking about. So my concern is that, while he's great in most other respects, Obama might have a bit of blind spot to petty corruption (and I have to admit, it doesn't cause anything close to the damage from Bush's style of corruption). If so, we might be seeing a lot more investigations and media witch-hunts, and a lot less change next year.
Widely-respected progressive columnist Juan Gonzalez nails SEIU's megalomaniac would-be dictator Andy Stern to the wall in a column in today's New York Daily News.
SEIU President Andy Stern is a threat to labor soul
SEIU President Andy Stern is pushing ahead with a plan despite several scandals.
Andy Stern, head of the nation's fastest-growing union and a chief proponent of labor reform, is about to reveal himself as a colossal scam artist.
Stern, president of the 2million-member Service Employees International Union, plans to kick off the new year with a stunning assault on democracy within his union.
I've been thinking about how undefined and blunt the word "corruption" is. What Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich did seems to me to be the most crass, gross kind of corruption. But it's different than the corruption of a Tom DeLay.
And I've been thinking about the useful sides of corruption in failed states and lesser developed nations. There seems to me to be a substantial difference between the type of corruption we saw historically in the Philippines and Vietnam when under American and French stewardship and the corruption in Japan and South Korea -- or the kind of corruption China is orchestrating in African states in which it is doing business.
In 2006, immediately after Democrats took the House, Dailykos, MyDD, and Swing State Project began fundraising for Karen Carter in the primary against a very obviously corrupt Democrat, William Jefferson. Chris and I, at MyDD at the time, even paid for Tim Tagaris to head down to New Orleans and cover the race, which he did in a spectacular series of depressing and fascinating posts about a shocked and paranoid city. Karen Carter, Jefferson's primary opponent, ended up losing to Jefferson, as he used the argument that the Federal government was out to get him just like it was out to get the city itself. Jefferson got support from Democratic incumbents, though it was tepid.
This year, Jefferson lost to a Republican, Joseph Cao. Had Carter or another Democrat beaten him in the primary, Democrats would have kept that seat. In fact, with Democrats having achieved fairly dominant majorities in Congress, a constant stream of primaries is the only way to give voters the opportunity to deal with corruption or ossification within the Democratic party itself. With the current mode of operations that suggests that primaries are a 'circular firing squad' or that only safe seats should be in play, in a sense, voters don't really get to clean out corruption without radically changing the political priorities of their community, which they might not want to do. And so you have close elections like the one in which Jefferson lost, where voters clearly aren't Republicans but will choose one if the alternative is someone caught with $90k in their freezer by the FBI.
Another conclusion, aside from the notion that more democracy is good, is that the best solution to corruption is the voting booth. That is the single most legitimate way to remove someone from power and replace them. Charlie Rangel and Alan Mollohan have been faced with ethics charges, let them explain them to their constituents. And if their constituents are fine with the charges, then it should be good enough for Congress to seat them. But without competitive primaries, constituents don't get to make that choice.
William Jefferson is not what I would call a 'better Democrat.' We all know his sad tale of the wads of cash in the freezer, even if in retrospect that looks like a good investment move.
Seriously, the Louisiana democratic party should be embarrased to have not defeated this guy in the primary. But, in a heavily blue district, there is an alternative to the crooked Dem.
That alternative is Green Party candidate Malik Rahim. A former Black Panther, Rahim has been a tireless community activist and hero to thousands of New Orleans residents in the wake of Katrina. He co-founded the Common Ground Health Clinic, which was the first health clinic in N.O to open after Katrina, and continues to offer free health care to N.O, residents without health insurance.
Norm Coleman has been asked some pretty embarrassing questions lately - about money funneled to him from a supporter, about receiving free suits, and free trips on a private jet.
The culture of corruption that has plagued the Bush White House has infected Norm Coleman as well. These illegal gifts come with a price - influence over Coleman's actions in the U.S. Senate, and this effects all of us.
It is time that Minnesota get the honest representation in the U.S. Senate that it deserves. It is time for Norm Coleman to go.
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